Themes and tricks

At this point, a frown may flick across the face of the seasoned setter or solver.

"Yes - tricky, isn't it?" adds the GEGS-liker. But the seasoned setter or solver (SSoS) is frowning not because he or she is struggling with the clue, but struggling to accept that it is a clue. For one thing, each answer in a cryptic crossword is typically indicated twice: once by definition and again by wordplay; for another, much sweat goes into getting that wordplay to work as a meaningful phrase in English.

Since "gegs" isn't even a word, it's not hard to see why the SSoS is discombobulated, even though the GEGS-liker's enthusiasm is sincerely meant. They've failed, though, to distinguish crosswords from Catchphrase.

I'd be interested to know why the cult of GEGS endures when no crossword editor seems likely to allow it in a real-world puzzle. I've honestly nothing against GEGS or its fans, but it does make crosswords seem harder than they are to newcomers and it seems a shame that the one you hear most often isn't a proper - and properly impressive - cryptic clue. (An episode of Drop The Dead Donkey structured around Henry failing to solve the clue may be partly responsible.)

A couple of the clues might seem to resemble GEGS to the untrained eye. But they don't, not really. For one thing, there's a message reading "Special instructions: Eleven solutions are of a kind, hinted at but not defined" - as in, lacking a definition is so important it must be mentioned - and as you solve a few of the 11, you see that they're all about vegetables. For another, the most dingbatty of the thematics end with an interrobang. No punctuation mark indicates that things are messy or weird like an interrobang. Here's the first across and the first down:

7ac Apes?! (5,4)

1d pi?! (6)

In both cases, MUSHY PEAS and TURNIP, the answer is what you would usually find in the clue, and vice versa.

And since we seem to have started this week in a punctilious mood, what a good time to enjoy remembering that when an exception proves a rule, "prove" once meant "test" (as in "proving grounds", where rockets are tested), not "establish". Seems obvious - a rule which was established by its being broken would be a pretty feeble rule. Onwards!

The across isn't actually about Dr Liam in the end, but the BELSTONE Fox, which was new to me - so I wondered whether adviser in the down answer would be WERRITTY; it turned out they both were.

If I'd still been thinking about our elected representatives during Araucaria's Friday puzzle, I might have wasted less time thinking about Captain Morgan and Morgan le Fay ...

21d Horrid characters put straight by Morgan (6)

... instead of former Welsh first minister RHODRI. It's never a bad thing to have your attention diverted from Westminster; I would add that it's a nice change from the Clegg-bashing that's been a crossword staple for the past 18 months if this week's instances hadn't been such pleasing clues. Thursday's FT had this swipe from Redshank:

17ac In which role Clegg should take a bow? (6,6)

Known locally as Crucible, Redshank gives with the clue but takes with the answer, SECOND FIDDLE. Wednesday's Times was, if anything, more scathing ...

5d Mar electoral bid, disastrously, for such a candidate (7,8)

... of every LIBERAL DEMOCRAT.

Newer words

Two options for starting your holiday abroad in this week's puzzles. In Friday's FT, Falcon - familiar to solvers of the Observer's Everyman - is travelling in style:

Blue clues

... but it's worth remembering that CLEAVAGE can also be seen lower down the body, as a trip to your nearest building site may confirm.

Cluing coincidence

I've never really signed up for "coals to Newcastle" as a way of saying something's provided unnecessarily. Partly because not all of Newcastle is an actual coal mine, so it's surely been necessary to take fuel from, say, the Hetton colliery to, say, the people of Byker, but mainly because I prefer another Northumbrian metaphor: getting off at Gateshead, which gave a title to Jonathon Green's recent dictionary of "the dirtiest words and phrases in English".

Newcastle did, however, provide a couple of enjoyable clues this week. Friday's Times asked for the city itself ...

5d Port with fresh lot of wine holding officer up (9)

... while NEWCASTLE was the starting point for Redshank in Thursday's FT, who had you poignantly remove letters W for women and CA for circa ...

1d Are there no women about in Newcastleto snuggle? (6)

... leaving you to NESTLE.

Crosswords about crosswords

I told a friend recently about a themed crossword that had just tickled me. "It was the Times for me today," he replied. "You know what the theme was? Nothing. As it is every day. That's how we like it."

While its individual clues can be a laugh, it's true that the Times doesn't go much for fun with the form. But on Monday it loosened a button on its shirt with, of all things, an acrostic. Reading down, the first letters of the clues gave THE TWENTY-FIVE THOUSANDTH CROSSWORD. Which this was, of course. The setter played down the milestone, with the top and bottom rows reading CHANGED DIGIT and ROUND NUMBER - quite a literal-minded take.

The news part of the paper was readier to celebrate, with a leader column (albeit one a little pleased with the chestnut dingbat HIJKLMNO for water), a sparky piece by the arts editor (illustrated by former crossword editor Adrian Bell brandishing a quill) and a useful glimpse into the setter's mind from John Grimshaw ("I work through The Times's 71 grids in sequence"). Members of the crossword club could also have a stab at the 5,000th and 15,000th puzzles.

As if planned by a god with a thing about arbitrary but good-looking number patterns, this week also saw the 666th Telegraph Toughie, published on 11/11/11. I suppose if you wished, you could have started solving it at 11:11:11, helped by two fat ladies who work for the emergency services or something. Anyway, Osmosis offered all the 666iness you'd hope for - IMP and SATANICALLY joined by the DEVIL clued as "Extremist in despicable wickedness?" and a little extra. Both the number of the puzzle and the date were contained in entries as you read across the rows: VIAL / DEVIL / LEVI, TAXI / EXILE / AXIS and VIEW / CALVI / AVID.

As if not to be outdone by this self-referentiality, two of the compilers we've met here recently in Meet The Setter did something curious this week. Enigmatist included his real first name and surname in Wednesday's Guardian, for reasons - if there were any - that remain obscure to me. And in the previous day's Independent, Anax had eight clues that lacked a definition. Except that they each - ABSENCE, SCANTINESS, WANT, MISS, SHORTAGE, PRIVATION, SCARCITY and NEED - meant "lack", and the top row of the puzzle read LACK DEFINITION. That is to say, they lacked "lack" as definition but didn't really lack definition. I hope that's clear.